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Improvements in women's status, decision-making and child nutrition: evidence from Bangladesh and Indonesia

IMPROVEMENTS IN WOMEN’S STATUS, DECISION-MAKING
AND CHILD NUTRITION:
EVIDENCE FROM BANGLADESH AND INDONESIA
by
Radheeka Ranmali Jayasundera
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SOCIOLOGY)
August 2012
Copyright 2012 Radheeka Ranmali Jayasundera

The goal of this dissertation is (1) to analyze how the determinants of women’s decision-making power and child stunting have changed over time and (2) to identify the sources of improvement in women’s decision-making and child health in two less-developed Muslim countries. According to past literature, the agents of change in women’s decision-making at the household-level should derive from changes in women’s education and wage employment. Sources of change in child health should derive from parental education, household wealth and community infrastructure. ❧ This dissertation contributes to the current literature by looking at change in women’s status and its determinants over time, and its implications for child health in one of the most gender biased and malnourished societies in the world—Bangladesh. It also examines the role of social context on women’s status by comparing two predominantly Muslim societies—Bangladesh and Indonesia that had similar origins in terms of economic and social development. ❧ In the first paper, I ask two questions: (1) what factors predict women’s decision-making in Bangladesh in 1999 and 2007? and (2) do increases in women’s socioeconomic characteristics contribute to improvements in women’s decision-making in Bangladesh from 1999 to 2007? I use logistic regression and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to answer these questions. The results indicate that, the strength of the relationships between predictors and women’s decision-making has changed over time. And the mean increase in women’s socioeconomic status only has a modest effect on decision-making. Much of the difference between 1999 and 2007 is accounted for by the intercept, which may have subsumed unobserved variables that represent change in norms and attitudes towards women and economic development. ❧ In the second paper, I attempt to answer the same questions in Indonesia. The results indicate that improvements in women’s decision-making from 1997 to 2007 are partly due to improvements in women’s socioeconomic status, but similar to Bangladesh, the majority of the improvement derives from the differences in intercepts. In the second part of this paper, I harmonize data from Bangladesh and Indonesia to examine the role of social context on women’s decision-making. The results suggest that the underlying cultural context in Indonesia and Bangladesh plays an important role in determining women’s status regardless of their socioeconomic characteristics. Ethnographic evidence from Indonesia and Bangladesh on family systems and traditions support these results. Therefore, it can be concluded that social context is an important factor (net of socioeconomic characteristics) in women’s decision-making. ❧ In the third paper, I look at the impact of women’s socioeconomic status on child stunting in Bangladesh, where child malnutrition is widespread and detrimental to development. In recent years, the number of children who are stunted has been significantly reduced. The results from Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions reveal two things: 1) improvements in women’s education (net of partner’s education), delayed first marriage, reduction in fertility (i.e. the lower birth order of the child) and access to information through television viewership account for about half of the decline in child stunting. The other half is accounted for by improvements in household wealth, availability of electricity, drinking water and advanced sewerage systems. Because parents favor sons over daughters in Bangladesh, the effect of parent’s education on stunting is weaker for girls than for boys. In fact, the majority of the reduction in stunting for girls comes from improvements in household assets and community infrastructure that are usually available for all children in the household regardless of their gender. ❧ These results partly support the notion that increases in women’s socioeconomic characteristics have an impact on improvements in decision-making and child nutrition in Bangladesh and Indonesia. But other community level changes such as norms and attitudes towards women, improvements in infrastructure and wealth, which usually accompany modernization and economic development, also play an important role in the improvements of women’s decision-making and child nutrition. From a welfare policy point of view, these results are encouraging; as empowering women in developing countries have had a positive effect on their wellbeing as well as their children’s wellbeing.

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IMPROVEMENTS IN WOMEN’S STATUS, DECISION-MAKING
AND CHILD NUTRITION:
EVIDENCE FROM BANGLADESH AND INDONESIA
by
Radheeka Ranmali Jayasundera
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SOCIOLOGY)
August 2012
Copyright 2012 Radheeka Ranmali Jayasundera